She laughed again. “I’ve never had a man fight a rival for me, you know.”
“Rival, hell,” he murmured as her lips caressed the hollow of his throat.
“Sure of yourself, aren’t you, my prince?”
“Sioned—” It was impossible to think when her mouth drifted soft kisses over his shoulder. The ache of his bruises and the sting of the graze on his hip had gone the way of her headache, it seemed, and for the same reason.
“Oh, yes, I feel much better now,” she murmured, her arms sliding around him, her fingers dancing over his back. “And you feel wonderful. . . .”
“Sioned,” he said again, and felt tremors invade his bones. A new ache had centered in the pit of his stomach, and as he held her he wondered how he could ever have mistaken another body for hers, another fire for this blaze that ignited in his blood now. “I—there’s something I should tell you—”
“Unless it’s that you love me, I’m not interested.” Her hands moved down to slide the knives from his belt, and she giggled softly. “I heard about the clause in Tobin’s marriage contract. Do I have to make you agree to the same?”
“If you don’t stop that—”
“Oh, Rohan! You really don’t want me to stop.”
“No,” he conceded, smiling as she pushed him down onto the soft moss.
“We’ll have to plant a tree like this at Stronghold so we can always remember the first time we ever made love.”
“Do you think I could ever forget? Besides which,” he added somewhat breathlessly, “is that what we’re going to do?”
“Foolish prince.”
He drew away from her, wanting to see her face: shadowed and mysterious, lips parted on a knowing smile, eyes nearly incandescent, and so beautiful that his heart caught painfully in his chest. “Sioned,” he said thickly, “it is the first time for me.”
“You’re a sweet liar, my love,” she said, and lay back on the moss, holding out her arms to him. “Mine, too, I think. Nothing else counts.”
“Nothing,” he agreed as he held her to his heart, and knew it was true.
Chapter Seventeen
Palila could not wake herself from the nightmare. She was awash in white silk that billowed around her swollen body like a vast ocean of snow. Above her wailed a chorus of birds, bright creatures with frightened eyes and chill hands that made her flesh shrivel at their touch. Through it all was the pain, lancing through her until she screamed with it, writhing through the white silk sea to find dry land, sunlit land where she could be free of everything and rest.
But there was no rest, and no respite from the agony, and as it spasmed through her again she remembered. Palila shrieked, seeing again Crigo’s open, lifeless eyes gaping at her from his moonlight-pale face.
“You idiots, let me by!” came a new voice, crisp and decisive. “Don’t stand there like cattle! Make everything ready for her! Get out and don’t come back until you’ve found Lady Andrade!”
“No!” Palila cried, struggling to sit up. But Ianthe bent over her, dark eyes wide and avid, relishing every twist of pain.
“Be still. Yes, it’s me. Stop behaving as if you’d never had a baby before. Lie back and relax or you’ll make it worse for yourself.”
Palila cringed away from the hands that stroked her hair. She could not be in labor, it was impossible. Where were her comfortable, familiar rooms at Castle Crag, her personal physician, her minstrel to play soothing tunes? She could not be having this baby now. She was not due until well into autumn. But as another cramp tore through her body, arching her up from the white silk sheets, she remembered again Crigo’s pale, dead stare and the horrible cry of the dragon.
Ianthe’s hands, cool and surprisingly capable, supported her during the spasm. The princess wiped Palila’s face, gave her a sip of water, all the while with that sleek, pleased smile on her lips. As the pain faded, Palila glared feebly up at her in sick loathing.
“Why don’t you want Andrade here?” Ianthe murmured sweetly. “What happened tonight, Palila, that we found Crigo dead in here and you unconscious on the floor? Father’s physician is busy sewing up a wound he says he got in a fall. Nobody believes him, of course. Why is Crigo dead and Father wounded, Palila?”
The mistress shuddered away from the ministering hands. “Clever Ianthe,” she whispered. “Can’t you guess?”
“If you don’t admit the truth now, then certainly you’ll tell Andrade when she arrives. Oh,